Murder
Bucky Barnes has always seen himself as a murderer. He’s a soldier and once you’re in war, there’s not much else to do, but kill people, less you be the one left to decay in the sun. Bucky doesn’t regret what he’s done, what he’s learned to be able to do in the name of survival. Everything is different in times of war. When he was with Hydra, everyday was war. He’d wake up just to be given a mission and once he was done put back away like a prized weapon and he guesses that’s all he’s ever really been. Even back when he was a kid, saving Steve from bullies, using his fists to turn theirs into red pancakes, he was a weapon. Always for Steve to use when he needed him too. Although, the similarities between Steve and Hydra stop there. Weapons of protection and weapons of destruction have a thin line separating them, but a separation nonetheless. During his time as the Winter Soldier, Bucky doesn’t think there was ever a time he thought about escaping, but then again he wasn’t programmed to. Put into a state where he was broken to his most basic instincts all that he could think of was to survive and the only way to do that was to murder. To some, it was scary, but everything with Hydra was like that. They never saw their scientists as humans, just tools to enact their will. Amongst all the people he killed, he’s never forgotten a face, he remembers everything and it’s almost a curse. Almost, because Bucky knows that a lot of people he killed weren’t going to be remembered by anyone else but him and seeing someone in their dying states, you learn a lot more about them than anyone else could ever dream of.
The biggest thing he learned was probably from Howard and Maria Stark. He’d admired the man long before he was made into Hydra’s Cerberus. Howard was the reason that Steve could take care of himself without Bucky, the reason Steve had gotten his confidence back. Bucky doubted the man had an evil bone in his body. That night, it was dark and all Bucky could remember was that he had to kill all witnesses. It started out easy, maybe even a little fun, the wind whipping at his face as he made his way down the street, waiting for his mission and it wasn’t until he saw his eventual victims that he realized just how terrible the world was. As the Winter Soldier, he can’t feel a thing and he’s always frozen before the emotions can set in, but seeing Howard there, Bucky could feel his heart drop. Howard with his wife, without his son, about to die. It was supposed to be easy, a simple extraction mission, but, even as the Winter Soldier, he hesitated. It only happened for a second, but then he remembered survival, that if he failed he’d be seen as useless and killed. Bucky didn’t mind making an orphan then.
But that’s not particularly important. What is important is what he learned because of this mission. Howard, upon hearing him, immediately told him to help his wife. He was selfless, taking deep breaths, trying to remain calm and trusted a stranger to help his wife. When Bucky grabbed him, he recognized him immediately and it is here that things take a turn. Bucky’s murders usually end the same, groveling that eventually goes silent once he’s beaten or squeezed the life out of them, but Howard called his name, confusion and then eventually he nodded. There was this calm acceptance, not even a whimper of pain as Bucky bashed his head in, he was quiet, died much like a soldier, with honor, quiet. Maria was the same, always strong, willing to tackle any problem. She had cried, hearing her husband’s death, maybe even begged for mercy (Bucky can never remember it clearly) but when he made it around to her side of the car, she was silent and when he wrapped his hands around her throat, she didn’t even fight back, almost as if she knew there was no way out. Killing them was easy and once he got what he was told to get, he quickly left, made it back to Hydra and they deactivated him. The emotions set in much faster than he was used to and Bucky was sure that as his body was frozen they saw the way he shuttered, choking back whatever was attempting to make its way through. Bucky Barnes has always seen himself as a murderer, something that someone else uses to get rid of people they no longer wish to see and he’s always known that it would come back to bite him. It’s for this reason that when Zemo plays the clip from that night and Tony sees it, all he can really do is run. He can feel the way the sorrow is building up in himself again and when he sees how angry Tony is and the way that he lunges at him before Steve grabs him, fear quickly follows. Bucky deserves it, everything that Tony wants to throw at him, but he’s still stuck on surviving, the one thing that has always been with him and so, when Steve tells him to run, he does. Bucky knows he won’t get very far, not with the rage he saw on Tony’s face, but he climbs anyway. He’s almost at the top when he hears Tony behind him, slows down and allows him to shoot the lid closed. Suddenly, it’s like he’s back on the battlefield again, not as the Winter Soldier, but as a true soldier. Killing his country’s enemies, wondering when his time will come. He remembers on the plane, when Steve didn’t grab his hand, when Bucky had been too weak to hold on. Tony shoots at him and he slips and it’s the plane all over again. Instead of screaming, Bucky closes his eyes as he falls and waits for the pain.
Anger
Living in Wakanda gives Bucky a lot of time with his thoughts. Though for most people, that would be a good thing, but for Bucky it turned out to be nothing but a way to remember many things that he did not want to. Sometimes, when he's by himself, and catches a glimpse of his missing arm reflected in the mirrors or even the water when he's tending to his sheep, he's filled with an unbridled amount of anger and he doesn't know who to point it to, there's either too many people to blame or not enough. It's the most obvious to blame himself, because in the end it has to be his fault. It was his body, his skills, his hands and he can't hide behind what the scientist engineered him to do. He should have been more careful all those years ago when he was with Steve. He should have been more aware of his surroundings and the drop. Maybe, he should have fought harder when they found him in the woods.
It's around this time that he lets himself be mad at Steve. It isn't his fault and it's not fair to him, but sometimes Bucky lies awake at night and allows himself to think: why didn't Steve find me in time. The idiot thought it would be more wise to bury himself in an icy grave than to look for Bucky, than to find him when the soldiers didn't come back with a body. I'm with you till the end of the line. Well, we see how long that line was. It's not fair and Bucky knows that. He can't blame his childhood friend for grieving and then moving on in the only way Steve would know how: saving people. It's not that Steve wasn't with him till the end of the line, it was just that: the end of the line. Bucky, body or not, was presumed dead. Steve was alive, he had Peggy and a world to save. The anger displaces itself.
He goes through many people: Howard, Tony, Zemo, Fury, the world, but at the end of the day he knows that he can't let himself be angry for too long. Hydra were the bad people and, as far as The Avengers are concerned, Hydra is dead. Bucky is safe, T'challa all but promised that. There's nothing to hate anymore, but the burn still settles in his chest some days and pries him from his sleep. It wasn't his fault that he got kidnapped, but it happened. Hydra did this all to him and it seems they weren't punished enough. Some days, he wonders if he should've been harsher when they were catching Hydra agents instead of hiding. If it would have been better to make them suffer the same way he did, tear them open to nerve endings and make them do things against their will. The rage laps at him once again and for a second, enough that he forgets himself. He’s no longer in Wakanda, safe and sound, but instead is somehow back in the lab. He was never free or maybe he was and they managed to get him back. The anger cools from his body and is replaced with fear.
PTSD
Bucky struggles against the confines of the table he’s strapped to, which is rather hard to do with one arm, but he got out once and he won’t fall victim to Hydra again because he knows better now. He just needs to get out of here. The scientists stand over him. mumbling to each other. “He’s too self aware, bring the electric.” Bucky struggles harder, it’s taken so long to remember who he is and they are going to take it away like that, without a care in the world. He’s so tired of not being able to control what happens to him, they bring the machine closer to his head and he pulls against the leather straps that hold him against the table. Chest heaving, he tries to call out for help and then they’re shoving the mouth guard in his mouth and he’s choking on his own tongue, trying to defend himself. He can’t forget who he is. James Buchannon Barnes. Sergeant 32557.. He loses the rest as he’s shocked out of his sleep and into reality.
He’s sweating, clenches his fist in the dark as he tries to flirt his heart back down to its normal rhythm. That was so long ago and he is now free. He pants in the darkness, takes in the fresh air of Wakanda and slowly rises. Tonight, like all the nights before and, most likely, the nights that follow, he won’t be getting much sleep. He feels his breath come to him slower as he takes the time to reach out to his sheep that slumber. They also wake at his presence and he mutters a hushed apology in a language that was shocked into him. “I see the spirits keep you awake as well, White Wolf.” The voice is amused and Bucky turns to see T’challa, still in the black panther suit.”
“Is it the spirits that keep you up or the work they command you to do?” Bucky mutters and flexes his hand as he bends down to pet one of his smaller animals.
“Yes.” T’challa offers as an answer and Bucky squints but says nothing more. “If you continue like this will you be able to repent the way that you wish? How strong is The Winter Soldier without sleep.”
“I admit that I don’t know that, but James Buchannon Barnes has been excellent with almost no sleep. I have fought wars since before you were born.” Bucky chooses his words carefully.
T’challa laughs, “Are you bragging or letting me know that you are visited by more spirits than I can imagine?”
Bucky pauses a beat, licks his lips and nods, “Yes.” T’challa leaves him after that.
Some days, Bucky can find it in himself to get a good amount of sleep. The Winter Soldier’s fears are too far away to haunt him and he forgets that he was someone before The Winter Soldier. He claims the name Bucky because, despite what he says to anyone who questions him, James Buchannon Barnes has been dead for quite some time. In his foolishness, he rolls over James and hopscotches to Bucky, what Steve always calls him and forgets the skeletons that James nailed away, doesn’t hear the sound of rotting nails hitting the floor and then—Bucky and the rest of his unit has been captured. He’s being tortured, tied down to some table by who the minions in the base call Red Skull. It’s hot and everything hurts and he can’t remember how long he’s gone without proper water and he knows that without any communication to the other side they are never going to get any help.
He can hear the groans of his other men and he struggles, trying to find anything as he repeats who he is like a mantra. James Buchannon Barnes. Sergeant 32557038. He struggles again and hands are finally placed upon him. He can’t understand their muttering and suddenly he’s being pricked. He screams out and then he’s being lifted up and it’s Steve, but before he can find relief, Bucky hears his friend mutter a sorry and then he’s falling down, down and down still. When he looks up, he sees Steve, hand out from the train, screaming something, maybe it’s his name or maybe it is an apology for killing him. Bucky hits the ground and is suddenly falling out of bed. He can’t breathe and he waits for someone to come and take him to be tortured. The good thing about Wakanda is that it’s always quiet. He can hear if anyone comes. There are no footsteps.
He finds his breath and his heart waltz back to its regular beat. It is just him here. He ignores how much more terrifying that thought is. The bad thing about Wakanda is that it’s always quiet, he can always hear his thoughts.
Guilt
Bucky remembers the face of every person he’s killed and sometimes he’s the only person still alive who can mourn them properly. Their voices and faces eat at him until the sleep the memories of the war hadn’t taken are intertwined with them. It’s worse when he doesn’t know their names. When he was freshly The Winter Soldier, a perfect killing machine, Bucky remembers the accident he caused that killed three nameless soldiers. He’d spent the night with them, drank and blended in as a fresh recruit they hadn’t seen yet. They were his friends for the night and treated him well despite being a stranger and that's why it hurts so much that he can’t remember their names. Their faces he knows all too well when they were used as poster boys as what happens when you drink and drive. Back then, he hadn’t cared, let their deaths keep him alive as Hydra praised his efficiency, but now, he wonders what their names are, if they can forgive him.
The thing is, those men, who were turned into nothing but poster boys have no family to remember them, it was so long ago. On the anniversary of their deaths, he finds himself paying tribute to them in little ways, whether that be by having an extra drink when T’challa offers or even extending his prayers a little longer. Don’t get Bucky wrong, he’s not so wrapped up in religion to say he’s been saved or anything, but he likes to think that there is someone out their in the world that will forgive him, whether it is the spirits that T’challa spends so much time talking about or the god Steve whispers to when he believes no one to be listening. It does nothing about the guilt however, he is still laid awake by their whispers and their screams or even the way their eyes look at him, reservation and fear.
Some nights, when Wakanda is extra quiet, he can hear the screams of a baby, crying out for the mother he slaughtered moments prior or the father he’d hushed before he even made it back. He can see himself approaching her crib and she silences, thinking that he is indeed her savior, when he’s never been anyone’s savior. Hydra says leave no witnesses and that night, with his heart cold steel, he followed orders. Bucky mourns the innocent life that he snuffed out quietly and hopes that maybe she has been reborn better, in someone’s body and is happier, so much happier.
Bucky, with a rusted heart, sometimes allows the water to flow past his cheeks in silent tears. He bows at the grave that he’d requested T’challa to take him too. Hidden away, in the depths of America, his family graves. He bows to his knees and begs for forgiveness in front of his mother. She died when he was too young to remember her, but he knows that she’d be ashamed of him, of his legacy, of the way he treated the world his father left to him. He can’t bring it in himself to visit his father, not when he’s surrounded by so many fallen soldiers. Bucky wonders how many of them are because of him. He can hear his father’s voice, strict, but understanding and imagines them standing beside each other as he bows and begs for forgiveness in front of his mother’s grave. You did what you had to to survive. His father says, but his mom, as tough as ever hardens her voice, so repent.
T’challa never speaks when they return from the grave and doesn’t offer him an ounce of comfort. Steve always does and somehow always manages to meet them when the plane touches back down in Wakanda. Today though, Steve is absent and it’s almost like everyone agrees that he deserves to be eaten alive by his thoughts today. As he’s lying in bed, begging the sandman to give him crumbs of what he wishes to be a dreamless sleep. He remembers what his father would say to him when he would joke about not getting any sleep on the base. Only guilty men lose sleep. His father would say before laughing, as if he’d told a joke. Now, a century and some change later, Bucky wishes he didn’t get it.
Normality
Despite how much he is sure he doesn’t deserve it, life returns to Bucky easily. Once Stark forgives him, he uses so many resources to help Bucky. One night, when Tony has invited him back to the tower to spend the night and sees if he wants to stay there, Bucky finds himself awake at an ungodly hour once again, chasing away spirits he never learned to put to rest. He makes his way to the kitchen, wanting to see if the tea that Tony mentioned in passing actually worked and he finds the spider sitting on the counter, nursing what looks to be a glass of warm milk. The kid looks far more tired than Bucky thinks anyone his age should be. The spider, who’s name seems to have left him, looks his way and he smiles, Bucky nods in return. “Why are you up so late?”
“I could ask you the same question, but I guess yours carry more weight because you’re the adult.” The spider answers, snarky and little too much like Tony Stark.
“I couldn’t sleep, it’s too...noisy.” Bucky picks the last word carefully, not sure how many people know about the dreams he has, let alone bother a child with them.
“I guess you’re too used to Wakanda, city sounds much different.” he mutters, “I keep dreaming about getting crushed.”
Bucky is alarmed at his words and finds himself crossing the kitchen at a different pace than he expected, he navigates himself to the cabinets when he notices how scared the boy looked for a second. He grabs the tea and nods slowly, not sure how to respond.
“Mr. Bucky, do you know how hard it is to breathe when a building dropped on you? It sort of feels like you’re trapped underneath weighted blankets and people keep throwing more and more on. It’s hard to breathe. Then, I can’t tell the difference between my blankets and a building. It’s really stupid.” His voice sounds small and Bucky swallows as he heats the water on the stove.
“Well spider-”
“It’s Peter,” the boy corrects gently.
“Well, Peter, I do not know how that feels, but do you know how it feels to fall out of a train on a snowy day and drop down a cliff to what is essentially your death,” Bucky speaks slow as he makes his tea and from his peripheral, can see Peter shake his head. “It’s kinda like being dropped in an ice water bath, except there’s not enough water, just so much ice. You kind of forget how to breathe. Then, I can’t tell the difference between a shower and my impending doom. It sucks.” Bucky joins Peter on the counter and takes a sip of his tea.
“Sounds awful, but is it as bad as taking your enemy’s daughter to prom?” Peter leans on Bucky slowly.
“Mmm. I guess not. What really sucks though is when my sheep would get out while I was staying at Wakanda.” Bucky mutters and goes into this long story about how Shuri left the gate open, most likely on purpose, and released his sheep. Peter laughs here and there, but eventually he’s not answering as much and his breathing evens out. Bucky looks and sees Peter, completely gone on his shoulder, hands still nestled around a, now empty, glass. Seeing as how sleep doesn’t come to him as easily, Bucky doesn’t move from where he sits on the counter and that’s how Tony finds them some hours later.
He laughs, still dusting the remnants of sleep out of his eyes, “how long have you been like this?”
Bucky shrugs, “Since 3am, I couldn’t sleep and found him. One of my many stories was able to put him to sleep.” Tony blinks in alarm and slowly takes the glass out of Peter’s hand, but makes no effort to move the boy and makes breakfast around the two. The smell of food slowly awakes the rest of the tower, so many people and Bucky still has yet to learn their names. S
Steve walks up to him and lays a hand on his shoulder, “You look good. How much sleep did you get?”
“I’ve been up since 3am with the kid.” Bucky jerks his head toward Peter, who has slowly begun to wake up as Tony finishes the pancakes.
“Hydra?” Steve questions.
“The train.” Bucky mutters and Steve gets this sad look on his face that Bucky wishes he could wipe away. “It’s not your fault. It was a dumb move.”
“I still feel bad.”
“I can’t fix that.”
“I’m not asking you too.” Steve’s voice is gentle and Bucky feels his anxiety even out as Peter opens his eyes at the feeling of Tony pushing a plate of pancakes in his hands.
“The airplane?” he hears Tony ask, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“The building, Dad.” Peter mutters and Bucky squints, trying to remember if he has Peter down as Tony’s son in his analogue of thoughts. Tony looks just as surprised as Bucky feels and when Peter apologizes for calling him that, Tony shakes his head, tells him not to worry about it.
“I didn’t know you had a son, Tony.” Bucky speaks without much thought, wanting to ignore Steve’s increasingly warm presence. The rest of the guests laugh, the other iron man, Rhodey, if Bucky remembers correctly laughs the loudest.
Tony laughs while Peter sputters at his words, saying how it was a mistake, but Stark never denies it and as the sunlight blinds Bucky, he wonders if he deserves such a peaceful morning. Steve pats his shoulder, like he always does, whether it be when Steve was smaller than Bucky and trying to assure him he would make it through the night, or when Steve was pulling him out of Red Skull’s base or even when, years later, after trying to kill him, Steve came to see him in Wakanda. It reminds him that he has work to do, but that here he is one piece. That here everyone sees him as Bucky and not what he used to be.